Our favorite cinnamon roll suffers some more, the resident sweat potato is confused by her emotion, and both Eda and Camila are cool moms.
Notes:
Warning: self-hatred, gore
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
The moment her consciousness gradually returned to her body, she yearned for nothing more than to continue her slumber.
It was the first time in five years since she was able to rest for what felt like dozens of blissful hours that seemed elongated forever. Shrouded in a cocoon of soothing opacity, nestled away from the burning eyes of the wolds, she found herself in a void where unborn ones echoes failed the task of existing, and the clamor of elder devils faded into the hypothetical.
The world surrounding her was nothing more than a comforting blanket of darkness that enraptures the souls of those who stray too far from the light, its boundless form defined by the soothing whisper of tranquility.
The sudden shift of the abating veil is the only warning Luz gets before she is thrown - not physically, but something akin to tumbling and streaking across the nothingness like a comet, her momentum only halted by her form slamming into the surface of a pale desert.
The clash throws up massive clouds of bone dust and debris, the particles swirling and twisting in nauseating ways as their surfaced shone like unblemished diamonds. She feels no pain or shock from the fall, her flesh and muscle remaining unblemished from damage, the only difference between the veil of nothingness from before being the strange but perpetual hum filling her ears, the murmur rising, falling, and rising again, never once growing past the decibel of a whisper.
The sand is slightly warm, and she can't help but be peeved somewhat as she reluctantly rises to her feet, the comfortable feeling disappearing into the twilight. Her toes raked along the surface, the texture feeling like sand, behaving like sand, but she knew damn well it wasn't.
Moving her lifeless gaze around her, an empty expanse greeted her as a barren desert unfurled before her.
The endless snow that had claimed the end was gone, and the Forest that had once stood tall for an eternity and more now lay wasted, not an ember of their roots left. In the indefinable distance, what was once the kingdom of Life now was nothing more than a colorless sky, the intricate lights now nothing more than a forgotten dream, the only thing left alongside herself being the pale moon hanging leisurely in the sky.
If Luz had been in her place, the horrific sight would have killed and desecrated any semblance of the sound sleep she had been having. But her? Nothing more than a mirage created by Luz's mind to help itself in healing and take part in whatever masquerade the Hunter wanted to break Luz with? Well, the unique form of the bone dust was far more interesting than the extinction of all things.
Well, almost everything.
Eight thrones sat waiting.
Eight seats pierced through the sky and ascended beyond it, their form switching through dimensions and folding them along the way by the remnants of their unintelligible intentions.
Simply gazing at them forced the moniker of their owner to bloom inside her mind like a fetid moonflower, inscribing the information onto the numerous sulcus of her brain.
The first one, standing proudly to her left, was nothing more than a shadow that almost seemed to swallow the non-existent light from the pale Moon but not quite, the tendril of shades shifting like living flesh given life to sing one more time.
The First King of Chaos, the Beast that Dreams
Following to its right was one made of twitching and pulsating muscle and gaping eyes, each eyeball surrounded by coiling blind serpents that undulated into the mocking form of an ouroboros.
Gluttony given form, the Starving Blight.
The next was a throne made of deteriorating matter, its surface composed of bloating black holes and flashes of pale nuclear fire that formed the husk of a slumbering body whose rotten womb was split wide open, endless appendages sprouting from within.
Father of the abominable ones, the Blind Idiot God.
In contrast to the dim seat, the one next to it was crafted entirely from gleaming gold and radiant gems that whispered of endless riches and unwavering servitude.
The manifestation of envy, the Apocalypse Dragon.
Right beside it, another seat manifested, one of ever-shifting swords and blades that melded and reforged in a continuous cycle as they were bathed in a cascade of scalding bright ichor raining from the sky, symbolizing the embodiment of wrath, Haematotheist, and adjacent to it was the quintessence of decay, entropy, and immortality stitches into the putrid sphere of puss and lead.
The personifying sloth and its owner, The Archon of Filth.
The seventh throne stands apart from its predecessor, breaking the illogical mold all the others shared as it is almost entirely missing.
Besides the remnants of a crystalline foundation and the taste of avarice and cruelty that coiled on her tongue when she stared at it for too long. From the foundation a few remnants in the form of curved corners of time and various stars stuck in their final moments rose like unending spires, the light and heat of their hypernova barely out of tune with the world, leaving them in a perpetual state of stagnation.
the Child of Stars, Traitor of his Kin
The last throne isn't empty.
She wasn't sure if the unrendered form of the Hunter had always been there or had appeared as she had been a bit distracted, but what was certain was that his seat was just as strange as the rest.
It rose from the ground onto eight poles of ever-growing and snapping bones that, ranging from frail and hollowed bird bones to decayed exoskeleton of Worm gods, interlocking tightly between one another to hold the throne in place. Extending from the foundation, the seat broadened as sets of ribs pushed from beneath the throne, forming an orchestra of ribs and twitching bone marrow shaped like a blooming lotus.
"Don't you hear it?"
The Hunter's voice, a mocking mimicking of actual noise, commanded the space to such a degree that her ears clicked as soon as the first consonant rang out. The form of their body was oddly anthropomorphic, if only just, their neck craned to the sky.
And in said sky, there was nothing, and the Pale Moon
Sure, her brain received a visual input from her eyes, and it tried to compare the nothingness in the sky and the Pale Moon in its epicenter with the horrific sights Luz had encountered over the years of gazing into the abyss but found none.
She couldn't tell what it was despite the clear answer, what shape could ever look like, or what color she could even compare it to. Her mind could vomit a tide of words to describe the thing in either English or the forgotten language of the primordial devils, but she would run out of terms before formulating just a sketch of what lay in the sky.
This incomprehensible nothingness was the sky itself, stretching forever into the twilight and incircling the moon yet she could not see it.
Than the moon opened and although still unable to see, now she could hear.
Her flesh rips apart the moment the hyme erases the endless desert of bone ash and the flickering memory of Life's kingdom, her arteries and veins exploding into a revenant mist as her organs liquify before evaporating, leaving her nothing more than a shambling skeleton that gradually morphed into a shuffling abomination.
Power unblemished yet unbounded roses into their hollow core, the throne they stood unto—hasn't she been standing?, a moment ago crashing to the ground as they rose to welcome their maker.
Sad that this meeting is torn away from them by the machination of Luz's awakening consciousness.
At first, she does nothing more than stir, the copy made to survive the Hunter games being erased along with its memories, leaving Luz confused but well-rested nonetheless. As her eyes forcefully flutter open, a kaleidoscope of colors welcomes her back to the real world.
Before she could even move a single muscle, a mild but sharp pain shot across her skin, serrating her pain receptors as her entire throat felt like it was pricked by razor needles that bit into feeble tendons in her neck. With one hand massaging the worn-out muscles, she inspect her surroundings with tired eyes, not even trying to unweave the mangled thoughts that clouded her mind.
The room looked similar to a hospital room in the human world, from the large windows that allowed fresh light into the enclosure to the ashen walls that almost sucked the life out of everything, the only thing different being the absence of the frequent and irritating beeping of the machines that would adorn a hospital room.
With a sluggish effort, she summoned all her strength to push herself up from the horizontal embrace of the bed, shifting uncomfortably on the stiff mattress, the skin on her hands aching with every movement as it brushed against its itchy surface.
An unintentional yawn seeped by her, the corner of her mouth stinging as her jaws stretched wide open, the six rows of jagged teeth gleaming in the light.
Shifting her vision with mild concentration filled only by the minuscule desire to understand wherever she was, she took note of different elements of the room, ranging from the wall stacked with papers smeared with asymmetrical figures bathed in bright dyes to the young witch sleeping to one of the chairs in the room, her back resting against the backrest as tangled tendrils of green hair cascaded down her back and over the chair's backrest but also the anatomy illustration hanging from the wa-
'Wait, young witch!?'
Luz blinked once, and that was enough for her vision to fizzle and wither
(-The audience around her cheers and hollers from their seats, their unburdened excitement buzzing through the air like the drums of war, their grins hovering above her like wolves above wounded prey, not once realizing that they are all in danger.
She tries to inhale, but only viscus liquid greets her, the unwounded abomination above her staring with uncaring eyes into her v̷e̷r̷d̷a̷n̷t̷ amber ones. With unrelenting strength, the abomination wrapped around her, the gelatinous purple ooze churning in her mouth, forcefully opening her jaws and slowly crushing her windpipe as she uselessly fought for any semblance of control.
help me
Luz squirmed her arms around, trying to pull the fluid from her mouth, but what little part of the liquid she pulled out was quickly replaced, so with no hope in sight, she gazed at her 'enemy' and stared into her golden eyes, pleading her to stop.
Why won't you stop
But she doesn't.
So she searches for anyone in the crowd, anyone to help her, wordlessly pleading to be saved, but none meet her eyes.
Only the Hunter does.
Staring at her from the shadow of the ecstatic crowd, behind the people who were screaming and cheering, their thin but long claws( and yet so human, so like hers-) scraped against the witches and demons around them, their maw stretching wide open as they laughed and laughed and laughedlaug̷h̷e̷d̷l̷a̷u̷g̷h̷e̷d̷
Why won't anyone help me?
And in the murky and hazy mental state she found herself in, she couldn't help but question how they could stand alongside the monster that would purge them all, how they could cheer in unison with a creature who sang of blood and ruined worlds, and—
y̷o̷u̷ ̷u̷n̷g̷r̷a̷t̷e̷f̷u̷l̷ ̷i̷n̷s̷e̷c̷t̷s̷
And the world mutates in the Hunter's image)
Luz choked on a sudden, desperate breath, her eyes blown wide open as her hand clutched around her ribs, her chest heaving and aching with each frantic drag of air that wasn't that horrid and vicious liquid.
Her arm quivered like fragile leaves in the autumn breeze, trembling hands scraping her nails desperately against her skin, leaving diminutive grazes engraved in her flesh as she attempted to pull her mind together, blood and memories surging into her ears and muting her surroundings.
And that makes it even worse, for which every second passing by, the almost primal desire to pierce a hole through her ears just so she could hear grew in intensity, the only sound encompassing her being her churning thoughts and the laughing.
That horrid laughter.
A deafening roar of laughter rumbled from the bottom of her mind, brewing with brutal vindication that made the hair on her arms stand on end. A maniacal cackle that grew louder and more unhinged by the second, unbounded by simple laws such as energy conservation and sound decay and piercing through the boundaries of reason as it clawed at her sanity. A salty mixture of perspiration and unshed tears mingled with a tinge of blood that was flowing from her nose, and no matter how much she tried to scrap it off, the liquid would not depart, glued to her face like a parasite.
However, despite her expectations, the Hunter refrained from doing anything besides laughing.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Her heart almost jumped from her chest as she pulled her body backward, her back crashing against the metal rail of the bed, forcing a hiss out of her as the meta bar imprinted a shallow bruise across her shoulder blades. A jolt of panic shot through her that mitigated the pain caused by the collision, the prospect of what the pompous witch was here for overcoming the ache that throbbed on her back.
Standing opposite of her was none other than Amity Blight, her verdant mint hair cascaded in untamed waves from her head, liberated from the confines of the usual ponytail she proudly wore, the once neatly coiffed haircut reduced to a tangled and feverish mess with no apparent order or pattern.
'Was she here to get revenge?'
A timid voice whispered into her ear, and she couldn't help but fall for its deceitful words. The question tugged at her mind like a metal claw, and even as she tried to shake off the idea, to convince herself that it was just her apprehension around people who weren't her mom, she couldn't dispute it.
Amilty, on the other hand, was unaware of Luz's turmoil, caught off guard by the human unexpected reaction causing her to instinctively retract her outstretched arm, drawing it closer to her body, the sudden inclination to give up on her apology sprouting in her mind.
Still, she dismissed the idea with a shake of her head, and with a spike of resolve and a slight and hopefully subtle tremor in her voice, Amity began to speak.
The young witch's words registered in her brain but didn't quite reach Luz no matter how much she strained her ears to do so—please stop laughing, the unintentional monologue suppressed by the scratching noise that reverberated like the blast of a thousand trumpets—s-stop laughing, that shook her entire being.
To her shock, the young witch didn't seem to realize that Luz couldn't even comprehend her world, not showing any signs of aggression or confusion. Turning her gaze to meet the witch's golden orbs, a subtle flicker of guilt briefly flashed in Amity's eyes, leaving Luz puzzled as the witches tone becoming more soft-spoken and so unfamiliar.
That was if she could have actually heard anything that wasn't that fucking laughter.
A cacophony of laughter blended to form a horrid sound that was not too dissimilar to a wordless melody of deep echoing, sharp syllabic hissing and pushed in its indomitable march against her sanity, the distorted cackle nothing less than a chorus of agonizing voices having their blood and bones rendered to mush and their screams swirling into madness.
"STOP. LAUGHING. "
And her self-control slipped through her fingers like grains of sand.
The air surrounding her grew thick with the indiscernible stench of decay, conducting through the ionic compound present in the atmosphere the animosity that had been gradually building in the place where her heart should be. From the spinal cord down to every cell, nerve ending, and tissue in her body, to surging through the electrical impulses that rushed across her neural network, an all-encompassing miasma of churning despair bleeds from her silhouette.
The shadows clinging to the walls, hidden away from the scorching light, writhed and twisted like tendrils that vibrated in tune with her unstable emotion.
With a sickly crunch, she clamped her teeth together, flashes of unearthly light detonating from the movement; the metal bar at the edge of her bed vaporized in a shower of spark as her skinless fingers pulverized the metal into powder, bits of sharpened alloy imbedding themself into her upper arm.
Hehe glared past the young witch, eyes fixated not on Amity but on the erroneous shade that contrived itself behind the young witch, shaping into an anthropomorphic mass of writhing appendages and skeletal tendrils that intertwined and formed a macabre fusion of sinew and marrow. The form they chose did not bear any characteristics besides the unclogged maw spread wide open and two orbs of burning verdant, the fangs peeking through the gap of the 'mouth' painted in shining colorless blood that shone a smidge out of tune with the world.
Chaos Ichor, vital fluid of the abominable gods roaming the lowest ring of the Abyss
Something sinister burrowed in her mind, but she doesn't get to focus on it for more than a moment as one of the Hunter appendages pulls the unreal droplets of blood into their gullet, the maw itself stretching like a universe yawning in the process.
In an action that made the scowl on her face deepen, the Nightmare prop the same appendage on the frozen form of Amity—a grotesque amalgamation of bone and song contorted into a macabre but poor interpretation of a human arm, their arm and Amity body separated only by the Lie that kept the Nightmare a step out of tune with existence. The movement of their appendages created crackling fissures in the atmosphere, matter splintering under their noxious influence as pieces of solid air tumbled to the ground like boiled shards of glass, leaving vast gaps of disarray in place.
The Hunter took a step forward, the distance between them shortening as their will deflected the laws of space and compressed the reality so that what should have taken five steps was done in one.
Their appendages dragged itself across the young witch's body as they move past her frozen form, blood and flesh exploding in crimson fumes that evaporate into the ether and the remnants left morphing into an obelisk of ash and marrow, of memories and regrets, forming lines of tribute to empower the Hunter evermore. The spire stretches further and further into the sky, the medical clinic snapping in half alongside the entire surface of the planet, the walls around them crumbling to dust and showcasing the devastation that would soon befall the Boiling Isle.
She doesn't even realize she has sprung forward into an upright position, at the same time completely unaware of the almost deranged expression of stupefaction and agitation that spread across her face, hatred and sorrow burning in her core so suddenly that she virtually loses herself in her wrath, the shadows around her stretching until they broke into uneven fragments.
Yet even in this state of whirling emotions, she doesn't miss the grinning visage of the Hunter staring at her with an almost human amusement.
The Nightmare uncaring of her turmoil, turns their 'head' to the side, their gaze lingering onto the petrified witches and demons caught in their final moment, some running for their life while others are frozen before the sudden annihilation that befall their species. Surprisingly, there were even some brave ones who were starting to form circles of magic with the naive hope of stopping that wave of death created by the Hunter's uncaring thought.
"Look at them, so close to their end, chickens with their head cut from the body yet freer than you and us combined." Something flickered in the orbs that orbited the Hunter's empty sockets, an emotion familiar to her but what should be foreign for a Nightmare like the Hunter.
"Their species is nothing more than a wooden boat lost in an ocean of monsters, surviving to this day only by the grace of the Human Emperor's mercy and his endless hoards of gods and unhallowed beasts, and yet they are happier in their mortality than us in our Godhood."
To this day, Luz doesn't know if it was the anxiety she felt building in her stomach as the gradual realization that the Hunter was different from the Nightmare she had unfortunately met so many years ago, or perhaps it was the desire to have something terrible happen to her, but despite her apprehension, her fear gave way just enough for the knot in her throat to be dislodged.
"What are you? For a long time, I have thought that you were some bastard of a God who got a kick of ruining my life, but.." Luz stopped for a second, gulping as their gaze landed on her, their head tilting to the right.
"...that is clearly not the case."
Clenching her arms until her knuckles turned ghostly white, she labored to draw a short breath through her nostril to soth her nerves before continuing.
"Via the biggest stroke of bad luck the world had ever seen, I somehow got linked with you, your influence bringing forth emotion in me that you had no right to engrave into my mind."
The world stood at a standstill as she finished her accusation, allowing her words to ring in the deteriorating air, the adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream subsiding for a second and allowing fear to fill the gap it left.
"Would giving you one of our many names help you in any way?"
With a sudden shift that twisted their entire psychology, they pushed their head forward, the unhinged maw hanging less meter away from her face.
" Would learning about the existence of our titles such as the Youngest Hatred, The Last Nightmare, or ■■z ■o■■d■ bring you some comfort? No, it would not, but we will indulge your second inquiry."
There was a click in the air before she felt a crushing vice grip coil around her neck with enough force to sunder Creation, yet in reality only leaving a swallow bruise on her skin. Constricting tightly around her neck was a colorless and shapeless chain that was more sinew than an actual material and on its incomprehensible surface, a sentence was engraved on each interconnected link that was concealed by a deep mist that made it impossible to read it. A surge of fury and indignation coursed through her as she shifted her gaze to her counterpart, only for those emotions to wither before they could fully blossom.
The chain clamped to her neck divided in the middle, splitting into hundreds-thousands of them, each one hooked to the Nightmare's body.
"The truth can't be quite cruel yet so blissful, for the emotion you so dearly try to hide is the hatred that had dwelled inside your non-existent soul, brought forth by our influence, yet not created by us."
The shot of courage that had kept the fear from encroaching on her mind was suddenly gone, making her take a step back, only to realize it was fruitless as the chain only dragged her forward, the Hunter dropping to their eye level and forcing her to gaze into their hollow eyesockets, the verdant orbs missing from their place.
Their voice, or more realistically, the grating choir of jarring frequencies and clicks grows in intensity, forming a clamor of ever-changing notes that clash against each other and creating a nauseating ache that spreads across her temples.
"The hatred and resentment you hold for all who wronged you, for those who looked down on you, for Borrasca and this ceaseless Dream is of your own making, created by your inability to stop being so miserable and stand up for yourself."
Their voice reached a crescendo as a dark liquid spews from their maw, their hatred fusing itself into the oxygen atoms in the air, the world around her, from the clusters of galaxies to the distant black holes, each one moaning in pain as they are pulled apart molecule by molecule before being reformed by the Lie only to be torn down again in a dreadful cycle of rebirth.
"Furthermore, we may have exerted our influence over you; we make no effort to conceal that fact. But in turn, you had also altered our very being."
Then, in a flash of static that released the universe from their grip, they were gone.
The world readjusted to its natural course, the broken fragment of time and space that had fallen to the ground mending back in their place as the Lie rejected the Hunter's action and shattered the growing obelisk, reforming the young witch and the ruin of the world to normality.
Luz is left once again alone to dwell in her confusion, the frantic beating of her heart being her only company as she can't stop her mind from reflecting on the nightmare words.
But the mixture of shock, confusion, and fear that swirled the golden orbs of the young witch postponed any question clouding her mind, the reminder that she wasn't alone hitting her like a train.
"Fuck."
The swear manages to reboot Amity's brain, breaking her out of her stupor and bringing her back to reality.
Taking a subconscious step back, a wave of phantom pain coursing across her flesh and the strange shift of her bones made her shudder.
Thankfully, the feeling lasted only momentarily, the cold tension that had grasped her body dissipating into the twilight.
"Are you alright?" The question slipped by Amity, so casual and innocent that she couldn't help but smile sheepishly despite the very weird interaction.
Luz wasn't fine, wanting nothing more than to understand what was going on in her life and maybe cry on her mother until her mind gave into unconsciousness, but as her smile grew wider, only held together by scorching cables, it didn't matter. After all, she had a role to play, nothing less than a tragic act of the fool with such an open heart.
Eda had never been more thankful that she knew one of the best doctors on the entire Isle.
After baby Blight had found her with an unconscious Luz strapped to her back, she felt some rusty instinct in her body kick in, and without fanfare, she bolted through the air like a ray of light with 'Bossy boots' clinging tightly to her staff, thankfully keeping Luz's unconscious form from plummeting to the ground.
And dear Titan, she couldn't understand what undiscovered magic the young witch used to carry Luz on her back and bring the human to her because Eda had to use a considerate amount of magic to keep the staff floating under the weight of what felt like a trash slug hanging onto her staff.
What would have spanned an hour or two on foot was shortened to barely two minutes, their form barely a bleep in the lavender sky.
The moment her feet touched the ground, she had to waste a second to ensure her hair didn't hang in all directions before blitzing toward the infirmary entrance. Quickly recognized by the staff, they waste no time in escorting her to the chief doctor, an old companion from Hexside who was kind as the sun and had saved her butt a few times over the years.
Surprising her once more, Amity continued to stay by Luz's side even after they had received approval from every medical professional on duty that Luz was in a stable condition, and thankfully, all but the pale scar that stretched across her forhead had been patched up. She recived the approval of all but her long-time friend, who, for an inexplicable reason, had hastily departing the scene before she could even catch up with her.
On a more happy note, the tiny aristocrat had stuck around waiting for Luz to wake up with probably less than five hours of sleep, which might or not have been very adorable. What made Amity stay even more amusing to Eda were the people sent to retrieve the young witch and bring her back home; who for some reason, acted like they owned the place, which gave her the best opportunity to test how far she could yeet someone, the only downside being that King wasn't here to check if she bested her record.
What wasn't as fun however, was spending an entire night on the cramped chairs of the clinic, her back aching after seven hours of sleep which were broken by sporadic bursts of noise caused by Luz's friends who had arrived a few hours after their hasty arrival to the clinic, keen to see if their injured friend was alright. She, of course, had to prevent them from waking Luz or Bossy boots up, which was an arduous task as they exuded a seemingly boundless reservoir of unsated energy that dwarfed the old witch by what felt like several orders of magnitude. But she would have to thank them someday as their hushed discussions almost drowned the annoying yapping of the Owl Beast.
Thankfully, just as the final rays of light began to filter through the clinic's windows, the sound of movement reached her ear all the way from Luz's room, signaling that either of them could have woken up. It was possibly it was only Amity who had resurfaced from unconsciousness but she felt like she was going mad by standing around and doing nothing, so with a quick pace, she reached the room housing the girls.
Without a moment of hesitation, she opened the door, her grin dropping ever so slightly and her words frezzing on her tongue as a surreal scene greeted her.
"He-
A delicate dance of emotions plays out in the dimly lit space.
The air felt heavy, burdened by a tense silence that hung like a noose around the room, suffocating the entire space with an iron grip.
Baby Blight, who stood in the center of the room, cast a minuscule shadow across the room, her tightened shoulders and curled biceps betraying a mingling of rigid stiffness and trepidation. Her sturdy body subtly shifted, foretelling the conflict within her as her gaze met her own.
Luz, on the other hand, lay sitting in the sterile white bed, her body seeming fragile like a porcelain glass, yet weirdly enough, her shadows almost seemed to swallow the entire room. Her eyes, a strange collection of intangible emotions almost shining beneath the blob of knotted hair, also turned toward Eda, her body instinctually burying deeper in the enmeshed ashen blankets and legs pulling tighter against her chest.
-llo"
Her voice ricochets off the walls, shaking both girls from their stupor, her greeting suspended in the air like a delicate web punctured only by the door closing behind her with a heavy thud.
In that transient moment, the girl's eyes locked one last time, and without fanfare, the young witch shook from the stupor completely, shifting on the balls of her feet, before moving to leave her the room.
"I-I have to go, but I guess I will see you again hum-I mena Luz." Ducking her head, Amity abruptly left the room before Eda could get another word out, the witch already covering half of the corridor's length, her pace quickening with every passing second.
Eda watched her with a questioning gaze before turning her head back into her room, only to be surprised again as Luz was already standing, the white blanket slipping from her petite form, cascading onto the bed and a small portion of it draping over the floor.
Stretched across her face was a smile so uncharacteristically soft, the contours of her lips barely hiding away the grinding of her teeth or the glistening of her eyes.
It was a smile too optimistic, too fake, radiating an excessive brightness, falling short of conveying genuine joy. The facade presented before her evoked a profound sense of discomfort, for despite hurting a bit, she knew it was the same smile she had watched bloom across Luz's face every day.
"Yeah, I guess we have no reason to stay anymore." The girl murmured under her breath as she likewise fled from the room, leaving Eda feeling a profound sense of failure that she couldn't piece out.
Having nothing less to do, the girl's departure happening in so little time rendered her wordless and robbed her of any speech she might have had, leaving her with the only option to just follow right after the human, her heart aching each time Luz's smile lengthened unnaturally as she meets her awaiting friends.
'Don't fall to the deception of the Nightmares. The Forest had paid the price for that, and so will you.'
The scratchy voice of the owl beast reverberated in her mind, but Eda couldn't help but laugh at its words.
This girl, so kind yet defeated by life, was the monster the owl beast was preaching about? The same girl who almost seemed to glow on the faintest whisper of praise?
Well if that was the case, then Eda would have to deal with the consequence of caring about that "monster".
Whatever their cost might be.
Living in a human world was a bizarre experience.
Whatever initial expectations she had imagined were shattered very quickly, but not in a bad way.
Not long after impersonating 'Luz Noceda', she found herself in a strange environment that was almost alien when compared to her past life.
The first day, she received a thigh hug from Luz's mom that almost shattered her composure, the guilt that she was partaking in something private only Luz should experience eating her mind and leaving her torn between gratitude and shame.
On the third day, faster than she would have ever expected t or thought possible, she made three friends.
THREE! Titan dammit.
The fifth day ended with the four of them forming the one and only Demon-Buster™, and although they didn't really find any demon since she was probably the only one in the human realm, Masha was sure that they would soon find some and who was she to disagree.
And on the eighth day, she almost meets Lady Death as Camila uncovers her identity.
To comprehend the gravity of the situation, we must rewind the clock to a few hours earlier, to the moments when Vee understood that almost every creature on the Boiling Isles paled in composition to Camila.
She was supposed to meet with her friend in the Gravesfield one and only park, a task she was failing miserably because of her laziness. She was pretty screwed, especially considering the park was two kilometers away and she was in no way getting into the metallic demons humans called 'buses', leaving her with only two options, the latter of which made her arrive beyond late.
Dashing down the stairs, she mildly sprints toward the door, only to be forced to halt in track when Camila emerges from the kitchen, blocking her path.
Vee froze, even after spending some time with the woman still making her gulp in apprehension. Let it be known that she didn't believe she was a tiny person in her fair—and only opinion, but in the presence of Miss. Noceda?
She felt like a wounded fairy with fewer teeth, the woman's cinderblock-like arms almost threefold her own. And taking into consideration that she had shapeshifted into Luz, the difference was even broader, which begs the question of how Luz could look so frail compared to the mountain of a woman who was her mother. Although the woman's muscle mass could be a payoff of the inhuman work hours she slave at. Vee might have been in the Human realm for less than a week, but she was pretty sure that it wasn't normal to work from daybreak to late evening, the dark bags hanging under her eyes heavy shadows being the only proof that the woman was sapped of energy.
Or maybe that was normal in the Human world, but she didn't like thinking about that because it was pretty fucked.
"Mamá, I am more than late, so I'd like to ask if there is any fast way to get to the park without using that ungodly gigantic metal monstrosity."
Vee inquired while doing the laces of her boots, trying her hardest to do the Titan damned loops that were nightmares given life to haunt her in the living realm. The woman, however, didn't respond, and before she could turn around to check her sudden silence, Camila's voice rang out.
"Has the Hunter been bothering you for the last week?" The change of subject and her uncharacteristic cold tone made Vee freeze momentarily, her mind working in overdrive to understand her sentence before the ... exclaiming.
"You mean Carla? Well, a bit, but Masha made sure she can't talk crap abou-" Her words are halted in their track, founding herself unable to complete her sentence as a metal bat sours through the air, making a tiny sonic boom as the bat froze five centimeters away from her neck, the airwave created by the blow biting into her skin and making her flinch.
Silence settled over the room like fallen snow, icy and dangerous, each movement reverberating like thunder over a bare land. Immediately, Vee knew something was wrong, the only noise echoing in the room being her shaky breathing, a foreign type of fear blooming in her chest.
"Turn around."
She does so immediately, her eyes widening along with her dilated pupils as she does everything in her power not to tremble under the gaze of the women. Camila was silent, her eyes hidden under a lock of hair and her jaw clenched tight, corded muscles like steel cables now apparent more than ever to Vee's eyes
Camila leaned down over Vee, her functional eye pining her to the floor like a weight dragging her to the bottom of the ocean.
"In a way, it should have been blatantly obvious that something was not right from the start, from the way birds had started to hover above our house after years or how the plate you had smashed to pieces yesterday had actually made a sound." As she talked, Camila let the metal bat decline to the floor, the woman taking a step forward, making Vee flinch backward, but the basilisk never once tore her gaze away from Camila.
And maybe if she had looked away, she wouldn't have seen the white lighting that shimmered behind Camila's eye patch.
It was a simple flash of light, almost unseeable, yet so obvious.
As the light bypassed the dark eye patch, it washed over Vee, making her flesh as if an icy bucket of lava had been dumped on her skin, forcing her to revert to her original form, her lengthy tail crashing to the ground and sending a cloud of dust through the air.
It wasn't pain that made her transform, for the lighting wasn't painful, yet it nevertheless wounded her. It was a sudden ache that washed over her identity like a low flame that threatened to burn her to embers and force her secret and fear to fall before the world's watchful and cruel eyes.
The glow grabbed onto her innocent and ever-changing soul that lay in her core and brought it to the light.
As suddenly as the lighting streaked across the room, it vanished into the twilight, leaving both of them to grapple with the profound revelation that enveloped them.
Vee's gaze fell to her feet, heavy with the weight of sham, her eyes locked onto the ground as if searching for answers in the sporadic cracks in the wood.
The silence hovers in the room for a moment before an audible sight breaks the ice.
"I would have liked to say that the revelation of an otherworldly creature assuming the guise of my beloved daughter would have been groundbreaking. Disappointingly, it does not."
Leaning onto the bat, her tone lessens for the moment alongside a bit of the tension in the room as she continues
"I won't ask what bizarre reasons you would have shapeshifting in my daughter, I just want to know where is my Luz?"
"I-I am sorry. I had only caught a glimpse of her as I left the Boiling Isle and entered your realm, she must be on the Boiling Isle but I don't know how to get back there."
And frankly, she also didn't want to go back, but she kept that information to herself
The weight of anticipation was like a mounting burden that seemed to intensify with every inhalation of the pensive air, the very air she breathed boring down upon her shoulders with its weight.
Finally, with a bit of reluctance, Camila let out another sigh, placing her bat behind the coat rack and grabbing her jacket and her car key from her purse.
"For now, if this is truly all you know, I will overlook it."
The words made Vee pause, unable to understand the meaning behind them, confusion swirling in her downcast eyes.
As for Camila, There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many answers she wanted to get, to force the girl to spill out any and all details regarding the place that took her daughter away from her. Still, despite those thoughts, she could not let her love for Luz blind her, even if it felt right.
Moreover, it's not as though she won't tear through Ava's bar until she gives Camila the precise location of Luz and the individuals she has to offer a beating to get her back.
"Now come on, I don't think you want to keep your friend waiting."
Camila's declaration made Vee freeze in place, her head glanced up at breakneck speed, and her eyes widened until she was sure they would explode out of her head.
The woman turned slightly back and subtly tilted her head as a playful glimmer danced in her eye.
"You didn't really believe that once I have found out about your nature, I would drop kick you into oblivion now, did you?"
Shapeshifting back into Luz, Camila could not help but laugh as Vee's face smoothed out from a frown into a gentle look of surprise, a soft blush coating her cheeks as she rushed past her and hastily entered her car.
Despite her embarrassment and apprehension, she nonetheless joined her for the ride, becoming apparent as day that despite knowing her friend for such little time, she cared about them.
And that made Camila's smile slip into a frown, for how much she would have loved her mija to be in her place even if it felt selfish and unfair. But the idea of her little starlight finding actual friends to rely on and help her heal just a bit of the damage done by the Hunter would have meant more than the world to her, and it pained her to think that she was stuck in a foreign world with only the Nightmare as "companion". Perhaps e there was even the chance she would be able to find a new family and friends there, and despite how much it would tear her to pieces, she would accept her decision to remain with them, but those are scenarios she would much rather not envision at all.
The revelation of the existence of a shapeshifter isn't all that groundbreaking or even threatening in the first place. After all, as she gazed through the window of her car to the outside world, the abomination masquerading as a tree, which her city had deemed the main attraction that would put them on the American map, seemed far more dangerous than an innocent child that lay anxiously to her right.
She could do nothing but run until her leg muscles tore from the effort.
All she had left were her own stuttering breaths, the aching in her bones, and the quivering of her dying body.
Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the guard scream to halt, but they were nothing more than background sound.
After all, if the love of her life could not stop her, then how could they?
Tears spilled down her face in revolting gushes, facial muscles twitching as her hand tried to pry the blood and bile stuck to her chin and failed miserably.
To this moment, she does not understand why she has accepted Eda's request to heal the supposed child in her care. If she knew what fate would befall her and soon creation itself, she would have thrown herself into the boiling sea before even considering her old friend's request.
If she hadn't been left alone with the sleeping body, if her own curiosity hadn't allowed her to grasp onto their bone, maybe she would have continued for the rest of her life in peaceful ignorance.
Perhaps if she hadn't touched the vessel of a Nightmare, then she would not have been able to see the grinning madness that stood above their world, its grin stretched endlessly across the lavender sky, smokey liquid cascading from their maw and dipped down the ever-changing fangs that feasted on the helpless stars in the sky, each one bearing the corpses of incessant creatures of untold powers and higher dimensions, their husks twitching and reaching out toward her in a mocking form of a warning.
That is why the people needed to know, why she mustn't be the only one to bear that knowledge of the grave danger that would soon befall them, their bodies and souls becoming nothing more than playthings for the last Nightmare.
And Titan, she had tried to warn them, from some of her colleagues to her beloved wife, pointing with a shaking digit to the grim visage blanking the sun, only for the Nightmare to remain unseen to them, turning their gaze toward her like she was the one that was crazy.
She dodged to the right as one of the guards tried to grab her, feeling the abomination in the sky laughing at her fruitless attempt, her right hand, the one that had touched the 'girl' body being unusable as the blood had already gone dry and her flesh stripped from the bones and left to rot under the light of the rising moon.
Then, in a sudden turn of events, just as another guard reached out to seize her, attempting to force her to the ground, a fluorescent liquid erupted from her throat. It gushed like a radiant torrent, enveloping her entire body in a luminous cascade that slipped to the floor.
None had a chance to react, and before she could blink, she found herself in a golden throne room.
In Life's kingdom, all creatures are welcome, no matter their birthplace. Even abyss critters, if able to keep their nature in check, are welcome in Life's embrace.
Only you, the one who stole Life's warmth, shall be treated no different from the abhorrent Nightmares.
For there is no suitable punishment, no means of torture to acquit you of your crimes in any world or dimension, Laughing King of Incarceration, horrendous master of the endless hoard
-A letter from Creation dedicated to the Emperor of Chains
Notes:
Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to announce that I am, in fact, not dead.
After seven rewrites of this chapter and two of the entire plot of this fanfic, it is my utmost pleasure to inform you that I'm still not too fond of this chapter . It is without a doubt a critical chapter for the story, but something about the lore dump at the beginning irks me a bit.
Nonetheless, I hope you like it despite its flaws, and I promise the next ones will be much better ( they have the interaction between Belos and the Collector, Belos and Darius, and did I mention Belos will be present?)
And as always, If you have any questions, remember to leave them in the comment.
Until next time, take care.